Google's Smart Reply will craft e-mail replies on your behalf

Those using Google’s Inbox e-mail client will soon have access to a handy new feature: automatic replies. The feature, known as Smart Reply, is designed to make replying to messages on a mobile device less cumbersome and time-consuming.

Introduced earlier today in a blog post by software engineer Bálint Miklós, Smart Reply uses machine learning to recognize e-mails that require a response. Google’s AI skims messages and offers up three natural language responses that fit the context of the message – all you need to do is select which reply you want and fire it off.

Miklós notes that Smart Reply is best for e-mails that only need a quick reply. For messages that require a lengthier response, the feature can provide a leg-up on the reply. What’s more, Smart Reply improves itself as you use it. Just as how Inbox gets better when you report spam, Smart Reply takes into account the responses you do or do not select.

Google launched Inbox late last year as a cross-platform app to help users manage inboxes that have become increasingly cluttered with social media notifications, bills, newsletters, forum replies and invitations in addition to loads of spam and junk mail. It was initially only available for Android, Chrome and iPhone although Google expanded it to Firefox, iPad and Safari earlier this year.

Smart Reply is set to go live later this week on Google Play and in the App Store.